82% of Pinoys say life quality worsened

MANILA, Philippines — With the country still reeling from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, four in every five Filipinos said their quality of life has worsened in the past year, a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

The survey, conducted from Sept. 17 to 20 with the results released yesterday, found that 82 percent of the 1,249 respondents saw the quality of their lives worsening in the last 12 months.

It was a point lower than the record high 83 percent obtained in a similar survey last May, but three points higher than the 79 percent observed in a subsequent poll in July.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said he is saddened by the SWS survey but expressed confidence that the Filipinos’ outlook in life will improve in the next months once a vaccine against COVID-19 is developed.

In a press briefing from Catanduanes yesterday, where he coordinated efforts from the national government, he said the survey outcome was understandable because everybody is affected by the pandemic.

“I’m saddened but that’s because of the pandemic. I think, from now, our lives will improve once the vaccine is developed and that we have learned to adjust our lives despite the prevalence of COVID-19,” Roque said in Filipino.

Based on the latest survey, only six percent said their lives improved in the past year, while the remaining 11 percent were unchanged. It was similar to the figures obtained in the May survey. Last July, eight percent of the respondents said their lives improved, while 12 percent said it was the same as before.

According to SWS, the latest survey figures would result in a “net gainers” score of -76, which is obtained by subtracting those who said their lives worsened from those who said their lives improved.

The net gainers’ score in May was -78 and -72 in July. Both scores were rounded off.

Last August, the polling firm revised its classifications for net gainers and included “catastrophic” for scores that are at -50 or below.

The previous classification only identifies those below -40 as “extremely low,” which is now the classification applied only for scores between -40 and -49.

Apart from the polls conducted this year, SWS said the only other time that the “quality of life” trend reached this “catastrophic” level was in June 2008 amid the rice and oil price hikes brought about by a global economic crisis.

At the time, 62 percent of Filipino respondents said their lives worsened in the past year, while 12 percent said it improved, resulting in a net score of -50.

Catastrophic in all areas

The last survey showed that the quality of life trend is at “catastrophic” level across all geographic areas nationwide.

The lowest was Visayas with a net gainers score of -80 (down from -75 in July), followed by those in Metro Manila at -76 (down from -71), rest of Luzon at -75 (down from -74) and Mindanao at -74 (down from -65).

In terms of educational attainment, the net score is lowest among elementary graduates at -83 (down from -73), followed by high school graduates at -76 (down from -74), non-elementary graduates at -72 (up from -77) and college graduates at -64 (down from -60).

The proportion of those whose quality of lives worsened was higher among those who recently experienced hunger or lost their jobs, according to SWS. It was -84 (89 percent worse, five percent better) among those who experienced hunger, while it was -72 (79 percent worse, seven percent better) for those who did not experience hunger.

The net gainers score for those who lost their jobs is at -79 (84 percent worse, four percent better, rounded off), followed by those who never had a job at -77 (83 percent worse, five percent better, rounded off) and those who have a job at -73 (81 percent worse, eight percent better).

The survey was conducted using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing. It has a margin of error of +/- three percent for national percentages.